December 17, 2012

Tempo MAD Dog!!!!

On December 8th, at the USDAA Agility Test hosted by Keystone Agility Club in Barto, PA, Tempo earned his Master Agility Dog title! He needed to qualify in both Master Gamblers & Master Snooker to finish is MAD, and he did both in style. He placed 4th in Gamblers, and though he only placed 5th in Snooker, he did earn the maximum of 51 points (4 other dogs also got 51 points but got across the finish line faster!) He ran great in Jumpers but I moved a hair too soon and pulled him off a jump, so no Q. But a bonus of the day was his Q in Grand Prix (5th place). He had also earned a GP Q on November 11th at High Octane’s test at Barto, with a 3rd place, so he is now qualified for Nationals in GP.

Dandy also had a great day qualifying in 3 of his 4 classes. We blew Masters Standard, but we aced Master Jumpers winning the 26” class. We ran Master Pairs with little brother Quid (Tempo’s littermate), and qualified with a clean run on both parts. And Dandy qualified in Grand Prix with a 4th place, just 0.02 seconds behind 3rd. This was a big improvement over our November 11 competition where Dandy and I had a Q-less day with just one error in every class.

At this last competition of the year, both dogs ran really well, no bars down, no contact or weave faults…just refusals. Tempo is running much better than in the beginning of the year, he is sending well and not asking as many questions. Dandy has had a few moments of being pushy, but he is still a dandy boy! We now take a little break as the holiday season is upon us, but we won’t rest for long as I’m planning on a 3-day USDAA event in January,and one or two days in February. 2014 will be bringing us more adventures, so there is lots to look forward to. Regardless of Q’s and titles, I’m grateful for every single day that I have with these awesome dogs.